Electrolyte Engineering Enables High Performance Zinc‐Ion Batteries

Zinc‐ion batteries (ZIBs) feature high safety, low cost, environmental‐friendliness, and promising electrochemical performance, and are therefore regarded as a potential technology to be applied in large‐scale energy storage devices. However, ZIBs still face some critical challenges and bottlenecks. The electrolyte is an essential component of batteries and its properties affect the mass transport, energy storage mechanisms, reaction kinetics, and side reactions of ZIBs. The adjustment of electrolyte formulas usually has direct and obvious impacts on the overall output and performance. In this review, advanced electrolyte strategies are overviewed for optimizing the compatibility between cathode materials and electrolytes, inhibiting anode corrosion and dendrite growth, extending electrochemical stability windows, enabling wearable applications, and enhancing temperature tolerance. The underlying scientific mechanisms, electrolyte design principles, and recent progress are presented to provide a better understanding and inspiration to readers. In addition, a comprehensive perspective about electrolyte design and engineering for ZIBs is included. In this review, the basic scientific issues of Zinc‐ion batteries are carefully analyzed and the recent development in extending lifespan, suppressing dendrite formation, inhibiting side reactions, widening electrochemical stability window, and extending useable temperature range via electrolyte design and engineering are discussed. The comparation among different strategies and effect evaluation is provided, as well as the perspectives of future trends.